New app for women to find friends and establish new friendships

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An Australian startup called dear molly has launched a website and mobile app that helps women make friends and connections in their own neighbourhood and online across the globe.

Via a targeted algorithm, dear molly aims to connect like-minded women based on their interests online and then facilitate messaging between the new friends. dear molly’s profiling system also enables online conversations with other females across the globe – think a WhatsApp style chat group but closed and with women with similar interests and backgrounds.

dear molly also provides its members with quality and broad ranging women-focused editorial content produced by a variety of female professionals and experts in the field. dear molly will feature a dedicated forum program designed to get women talking with each other online about current affairs and female issues such as returning to work; career advice; travel information; mental health as well as having babies and parenting. It will also offer members the opportunity to contribute articles to the site.

dear molly members take a short quiz to establish their interests. dear molly can then connect them with compatible friends based on the interests they nominate. Members can also manually search for other members based on location which can facilitate a meet up in person or being able to message that person directly.

The dear molly questionnaire also enables the website to connect women with common interests from across the world through its Chat function which will regularly suggest conversation members and topics when membership reaches 500.

dear molly is also launching its partnership with national charity Youngcare which is bringing much-needed change to the disability housing sector in Australia. dear molly will donate $500 to Youngcare for the first 500 members who sign up; an additional $2,000 when it reaches 5,000 members and a further $3,000 when its hits 10,000 members, with the intention of funding special support programs for young people with high care needs.

dear molly creator and Director, Clare Sultmann, said she developed the dear molly concept because there was no comprehensive online platform enabling women aged 25 plus to make proper real connections, not just mothers but all women.

“Social media and networking sites are now an acceptable model to find friends but as we all well know social media is where people only showcase their best moments of their life,” said Ms Sultmann.

“Very few, if any, websites offer both the ability to connect an algorithm-powered matching process online as well as the opportunity for women to engage in forums and to benefit from sound advice through good articles written by other professional women.”

Clare said that dear molly was also the product of her own personal experience and realisation of the importance of friendships.

“Like many, I relocated with my family shortly after having children and I encountered a common issue that most women understand. When life changes meeting people who share your interests is a challenge.”

“Life events like relocating, having children or retiring can be lonely and isolating. Just because you attend playgroups or social events, it doesn’t automatically mean people share your interests.”

“I wanted to provide women with a platform to share the real experiences of life with other real women and a place which helps women connect in person and online in an authentic way.”

“dear molly is that place and it represents women at any stage of life reaching out to others to share, inspire and connect, wherever they may be, whatever they may have.